


Jack Frost Nipping

by prophet_of_troy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders Advent 2020, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), POV Peter Pettigrew, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prophet_of_troy/pseuds/prophet_of_troy
Summary: The Marauders are having a warm night in during the holidays, but not all of them are thinking such happy thoughts
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: The Marauders Advent 2020





	Jack Frost Nipping

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much, Charlie9646, for reading over this for me!

Peter stared out of the window at the snow, bathed in the window’s warm light and sparkling in the night back at him as though the snow knew things he did not. Paranoia roiled in his stomach, crawling on his skin, and he turned away from the window, stepping to the side so that his back wouldn’t be to the glass. 

“Oi, Wormtail! Why so glum?”

Peter stood up straighter and smiled at his friend, at Moony, but before he could answer  _ she _ spoke. “Remus, he might be worried about his dad. Has there been any news, Peter?”

As if she cared. He could see that sparkle in those emerald eyes of hers, like that he’d seen in the snow, that told him she knew he was lying about the whole thing. She knew. She  _ had _ to know what really happened, with that gleam. Had she been there? Hidden behind a pillar when Lucius approached him to come to the manor for dinner? Had she somehow found a way into the manor itself?

“Wormtail!”

Peter blinked the growing tunnel vision away, alert again at Padfoot’s voice. “What?”

They were all looking at him, James’ arm slung around her shoulders. He gestured to her with a frown. “Lily asked you a question.”

“No,” he answered, somewhat bitterly. “I haven’t heard any news.”

She looked sad for him, and James clapped him on the arm before leading her to the sofa so they could curl up together in front of the fire. 

It was loud. The Christmas music was too loud, and he hated this muggle Christmas music, but  _ Lily _ was feeling festive, so the music stayed. Peter watched them laugh and joke together, and the bitterness in him grew as he did. She laughed too loud at some joke Sirius had told countless times. Padfoot. 

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs- and  _ Lily _ didn’t fit anywhere in that, and that seemed to be the only thing that kept him sane and quiet. 

_ “She’s an intruder, isn’t she?” _ Voldemort had asked.  _ “I mean, friendships like yours are meant to be cherished. How much loyalty can you really feel for a usurper and her spawn? There’s no reason we couldn’t let you and your friends live in peace, as you did before she came.” _

The room was stifling; hot and cramped and he couldn’t breathe- but Lily was cold so they kept adding logs to the fire anytime it remotely approached a comfortable temperature. And that girl, that silly girl shoving him out of his rightful place, had the audacity to look concerned. She turned to look at him over the side of the sofa, where she sat in James’ arms without a worry in the world. 

“You might should see the doctor,” she told him. “That could be a health problem.”

“Healer,” he corrected bitterly, gritting his teeth and trying to calm that anger in him like a conflagration- threatening to burn anything down in its path. 

“What?”

She always said everything in that tone of voice, so innocent and sweet like candy wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Just the sound of it made him violent, colouring his face and his own tone of voice. 

“They’re called Healers,” he sneered, louder this time since the muggle bitch was obviously hard of hearing. “Not doctors.”

She blinked those emerald eyes at him, startled at the sudden vitriol. He bet she expected she could charm him as she had the others. 

As she had James, who called back lazily, “Don’t be a prat, Wormtail.”

_ Don’t be a prat, Wormtail. _

That girl got all of the attention, stole his rightful place, and he was left with a disinterested ‘Don’t be a prat, Wormtail’ thrown in his general direction. Peter seethed and grit his teeth, watching them. Like an outsider. 

_ Jack Frost nipping at your nose _

He hadn’t been listening to the music- it was stupid- but the line rang in his ears anyone and seemed to strike a chord within him. Jack Frost, yes. He could feel the cold in his chest, chilled bare and devoid of anything besides the growing hatred. 

Why shouldn’t he consider it? 

James would forgive him eventually, he was sure, and it could just be the four of them again as it used to be. As it was supposed to be.  _ He _ had said that he would spare them. He just wanted the girl and that thing growing in her. 

Thinking of the spawn made him hesitate in his inner monologue for just a moment before the haze of contempt was restored. 

What should he care for a baby he didn’t know? A baby that would eventually get his friends killed?

“Padfoot, stop!” 

Padfoot in his animagus form was in Lily’s lap, licking her face. She laughed, trying to push him off of her. 

And why did she need to know that particular secret? Couldn’t they have had anything to themselves? Anything that stayed within the four of them? Lily had to know everything, and James had to tell her. Peter fumed when it first came up, quieting only when he saw that he was the only one that seemed to care. 

“Hey!” Suddenly he was Sirius again, sitting on the arm of the loveseat with that grin on his face that had once meant trouble. Wonderful, wonderful trouble. “Lily, we should adopt  _ you _ into the Marauders. We could make a whole new chapter! What do you think?”

“I don’t see her having too much trouble with the animagus process,” Remus added. 

As this went, Peter’s vision blurred more and more until at the end of his tunnel vision he could only see  _ her _ , and his grip tightened on the glass in his hand until he was afraid he would break it. 

“What do you think, Wormtail?”

They were all looking at him and- still with that song circling in his head and not coming out- he wanted nothing more than to kill her now in front of them. He wasn’t as skilled as the others, or even as skilled as she was, but he wasn’t a dud. And he was fast, faster than they were. He could pull his wand, kill her, and transform before they could react. 

Even as he thought this, his mind was made up.

He was going to get rid of her and that child, if he had to betray his friends to do it. 

If only for their own good.

He could always blame Jack Frost, whoever he was. 


End file.
